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Magnetic Transistor Could Cut Power Consumption and Make Chips Reprogrammable
ananyo writes "Transistors, the simple switches at the heart of all modern electronics, generally use a tiny voltage to toggle between 'on' and 'off.' The voltage approach is highly reliable and easy to miniaturize, but has its disadvantages. First, keeping the voltage on requires power, which drives up the energy consumption of the microchip. Second, transistors must be hard-wired into the chips and can't be reconfigured, which means computers need dedicated circuitry for all their functions. Now, researchers have made a type of transistor that can be switched with magnetism. The device could cut the power consumption of computers, cell phones and other electronics — and allow chips themselves to be 'reprogrammed' (abstract)."
Been so for 25 years. It's called FLASH memory.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
walking around with magnets and chip reprogrammers.
instructions from getting overwritten, I would say it's going to eat plenty of power.
Apparently this allows reconfigurable logic, except it does not say now it gets reconfigured, and mentions we don't have a good manufacturing process. So basically, its like an FPGA we can't build yet. TFA claims people already us magnets for memory, but maybe TFA means hard drives, or even magnetic core memory?
programmable gate arrays that can operate in the gigahertz. some specially made for networking
Sounds like bubble memory is about to make a comeback.
one that requires voltage to keep it on, one that requires voltage to keep it off (P channel vs N channel FET's), ones that require current levels to keep it on and off (npn and pnp BJT's)
so to say
"First, keeping the voltage on requires power"
is a broad statement, yea something that uses power requires power
Then
"Second, transistors must be hard-wired into the chips and can't be reconfigured"
well yea, but we have long established configurations of transistors that can be reconfigured to suit needs, its called programable logic and spans the life of PAL's, GAL's, CLPD's, and upto FPGA's
so, what exactly are you trying to tell me other than magnets can drop power consumption since they have a physical state memory, we already know that from core memory.
Can someone explain to me how this is different from an FPGA chip?
The idea of mutating the hardware directly sounds akin to the regulation of gene expression in living cells. For example, the "software" of a virus takes control over the "hardware" of a cell's DNA production, and forces it to make copies of itself. That sounds pretty interesting. (And dangerous) In that kind of a system, you'd need an analogue of white blood cells to seek out and "destroy" (re-wire) captured logic gates.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Magnetic states aren't as easily harmed by cosmic rays, thanks to spin majorities. That's why MRAM (magnetic RAM) is good for space applications. Now just bring in the magnetic processors, courtesy of this new magnetic transistor switch, and you can have a robust system that's much more capable of standing upto the harsh radiation environment of outer space without suffering crashes and glitches that can jeopardize a mission.
Uh, not all traditional forms of logic require power to sustain a high output signal. CMOS, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS#Power:_switching_and_leakage. Quoting, "Static CMOS gates are very power efficient because they dissipate nearly zero power when idle."
Yeah, if we gave a fuck about saving power... We wouldn't have wall warts spread all over the house and a bunch of devices that are never actually OFF.
After having gotten a kill-a-watt i was amazed how much power i 'wasted' because all of these devices built today are never actually OFF!.
Cheap o power strips and real on/off switches have saved me a little over $25 a month. Month after month.
This is very comparable to the field effect transistor. So the flow of electrons is controlled with magnetism instead of an electric field. Ok, but it still requires energy to create the gating field. Unless it requires less energy to create the magnetic field than it does to create the electrical field I don't see how this is in any way superior.
There's nothing that explains how the transistors are going to be dynamically reconfigured either.
I think either the reporter didn't understand or this is a joke.
- I've got bad karma because I won't parrot everyone else's opinion
Core !! Old as the hills !! So old, it has come back around !! Probably some shit unix time wrap failure !!
Take over your OS, pfft. With this they can repurpose your hardware entirely.
Captcha: suspect
It's a standard field effect transistor, except the gate can hold a magnetic charge on its own, with no voltage applied. You only need to apply a charge to change its state. It actually looks sort of like a flash cell, except as the gate of a transistor.
However, it's made with indium antimonide, which apparently doesn't work well with existing fabrication methods. And I have to wonder what the switching times on it would be - if it can handle the multi-gigahertz frequencies in modern processors.
The whole "reconfigurable" bit is journalist bullshit. Pay no attention to it.
(magnetic) core memory is entirely different, because it only contains one bit of information (and requires crazy timings, plus you have to rewrite the data when you read it, quite fun...)
Here it describes a magnetism-controlled resistor, which is another thing.
First, keeping the voltage on requires power, which drives up the energy consumption of the microchip.
Barely. Almost every digital chip out there uses CMOS logic. The whole point of CMOS logic is that, when the gates aren't switching, no current flows. That means that no power is drawn. In practice, a little bit of current leaks, but this is a small effect at all but the smallest process sizes.
It's not all clear from the abstract how the authors expect to maintain a magnetic field without any static power consumption. Perhaps using ferromagnets, but I wouldn't hold my breath -- MRAM still hasn't happened.
Memory is different from switches. You would need a "memory" core (holding the magnetic flux) to control the switch, BTW.
We gonna have some real smart robots someday.
What if that chip got wiped in the middle of a very critical mission?
Current crop of chips made of silicon transistors don't have that problem, unless the force of electro-magnetic interference got so great that it fries the chips.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
but the "discovery" of magnetic memory is one of the oldest ideas in computer engineering.
It's not the discovery of magnetic memory, but magnetic switching.
Cool, I'll be able to replace inductors, reed relays and hall effect sensors :-)
It seems that the whole thing might be going into the wrong direction, this technique certainly has more potential as a sensor.
Some magnetism sensors are : Hall effect, magnetoresistance (quite similar, no ?), reed relays, eventually coils when movement is involved. Well now there is a cousin of magnetoresistance... This one seems to be able to be miniaturised below the point of Hall effect sensors :-)
For example it could be used to measure the power consumption of a chip, or something like that, but then you'll have to shield is from external fields...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoresistance
Sounds like bubble memory is making a comeback.
(magnetic) core memory is entirely different, because it only contains one bit of information (and requires crazy timings, plus you have to rewrite the data when you read it, quite fun...)
You have crazy timing and you have to rewrite the data when you read it from DRAM as well.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Can wait to drive around with a junk yard car magnet!
But not SRAM :-)
Oh yes. A DDR3 device datasheet is more complex than that of quite a few peripheral chips from the 80s.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
This article is almost 100% weasel words. Of course, just like optical computers and 3d storage cubes, it's 5-10 years away, right?
Jeez.
mu-Metal works better than iron. It has 80-100 times better shielding capability. It's also lighter (kinda a big thing for space use...)
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
We're actually using GNU tw and so it's taken us this long to get a working implementation. If we'd been using the BSD tw then we'd have something working by now, but the other developers were worried that their changes could be taken out of the public domain.
If EMP's weren't bad enough now they would most defiantly scramble all tech.
FPGA's are about addressability of combinations. The finer the grain the more configuration and potential interconnect is needed to achieve flexibility.
Conversely, the larger the blocks are the more capacity can be fitted but the less combinations possible.
The cool part is possible efficiency savings - assuming it can also beat SRAM for speed and thereby get used right in the heart of processors.
The new function is MRAM - good for DRAM replacement. I don't see it beating flash any time soon simply on the basis of density. But as a DRAM alternative it has real potential.
After that, the risky part becomes coming up with ways to design hardware that can't get in a lockup state. Because a power down won't rescue you any more than the reset button does. It'll give a whole new variety of bricks!
That brings us to CMOS. CMOS was claimed to basically be a no power draw static fabrication technology too. But over the years, as the tech got miniaturised more and more it eventually started leaking so much that, on average, the leakage dominates.
These new spintronic techs will prolly end up having the similar leakage issues at similar scales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay
Remember all those post-apocalyptic shows in which a giant EMP reverts the world to a technological wasteland?
Put this these in all our electronics and we might get to find out what that's like.
Check this video out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEof8E2cF8o
Back then I was thinking of how this could overcome the heating problem we would get if we could change the characteristics of each transistor in a 3D layered transistor array. Imagine having a FPGA with 10x10x10 layers, all cross addressable and connectable, Diagonally as well as parallel.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Not sure you understand how a Faraday cage works - they are not powered.
Having yet another non-volatile transistor would only change how the configuration data are stored, not how the programmable logic is implemented.
All the FLASH based CPLD these days actually are SRAM based and load itself up with configuration data from FLASH somewhere else on the same chip/or multi-die package. The reason being is that SRAM uses less area, faster, more flexible as logic element and thus higher density for the logic/less propagation delay. FPGA use SRAM based logic cell (CLB).
Oh yes. A DDR3 device datasheet is more complex than that of quite a few peripheral chips from the 80s.
Yes. Quite a bit more complex. Today's devices have to cope with different power levels (suspend, hibernate, etc), their data busses are eight times as wide, and the address busses are also quite a bit wider. The clock timings are quite a bit tighter, etc.
Nevertheless, DDR3s, like all dynamic memory, requires refresh cycles and rewrite on read in order to maintain the data (in fact, all that a refresh cycle is is a read and rewrite session). These days, that is handled by control circuitry on the memory module, and within the north bridge chip on the motherboard, so the CPU doesn't have to deal with it However, it is still there. After all, at its heart, each bit in a dynamic ram chip is stored as a charge in a capacitor, and over time all capacitors leak their charge away.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
... you can brick a computer if you get it to near a large magnet.... like a speaker?.
Sounds suspiciously like a FPGA to me.
use a tiny voltage to toggle between 'on' and 'off.'
LOL
Electronics 101: Transistors are current switched devices.
transistors must be hard-wired into the chips
LOL
That comment just speaks for itself. Friggin softies.
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
You know the material of the shield doesn't matter, when someone suggests it as a possibility.
Some of the transistors wanted to become the new type, but then changed their mind and wanted to be hard wired, then changed their minds again ... in the end we decided they were flip flops!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)